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Mired in an eight-figure debt and hemorrhaging red ink just seven months ago, Richmond has finally emerged from debt, announced City Councilmember Tom Butt 

“Just 12 months after we were hit by a fiscal train wreck,” Butt said, “the city is once again solvent with a balanced budget, no structural deficit and no cumulative deficit.”  

Butt divided the credit among his fellow councilmembers, voters who enacted a new sales tax, city employees who agreed to a 10 percent pay reduction and to new management at the upper levels of municipal government. 

As a result of the debt elimination, Butt said, Moody’s Investors has upgraded the city’s bonds four ranks to Baa2. Similar upgrades are expected form Standard & Poor’s, the other major rating service. 

If the second upgrade follows, Richmond bonds will be once again considered investment grade and the city will be once again able to turn to the market to raise needed revenues, Butt said.  

—Richard Brenneman?